1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to colour copying and in particular, discloses a graphics system specifically adapted for inclusion into a colour copier.
2. Description of the Related Art
Colour composition systems for creating full colour desk top publishing seems capable of creating and printing, say, A3 size full colour images at 400 dots per inch (dpi), traditionally use a personal computer system with the aid of various input devices such as a mouse and a keyboard. The image is normally composed and stored in a frame buffer memory device on a pixel by pixel basis before the image is written out to the relevant display device, such as a colour printer on a line by line basis. Additionally, portions of the image can be scanned in by various scanning devices and also written to the frame buffer, thereby becoming part of the final image.
For an image the size of an A3 page, at 400 dpi, 4,632.times.6,480 pixels must be stored. If 24-bits of colour are stored per pixel, this gives a total storage requirement of over 90 Mbytes. Such a storage size requirement is significant expense in the design of a full colour composition system in addition to resulting in an increase in the size of any system incorporating the composition system. The cost and size of a colour copier is thereby increased should it be desired to incorporate an image composition system into a colour copier.